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Saturday, December 6, 2014

This is it! This will likely be my final post about the PEP22. Over Thanksgiving break, I finished the pistol. I bought some surface-hardening compound from Brownells and tried it out on some spare rivets, following the instructions on the canister. I tried quenching in both water and motor oil, but the compound would always bond to the steel in a hard mass. It was impossible to get it off without scratching the hell out of the metal underneath.

So I gave up on the case hardening. I've now put over 300 rounds through the gun and neither the sear nor firing pin is showing signs of premature wear. Those parts are easy enough to replace if they eventually wear out so I decided to leave them as-is. As for the trigger pin and sear pin, I do intend to machine new ones from better steel. I also tried using a letter punch set from Harbor Freight but it wouldn't produce even letters so I returned it.

Then it came time to blue the pistol. I ordered a jar of Oxpho-Blue cream from Brownells and started with the frame. It had some surface rust around the grip so I sanded that off. I cleaned it with air intake cleaner, scrubbed it with steel wool and then warmed it up with a propane torch (I read that this would produce better results). I did three applications and that seemed to work well. The inside surfaces of the frame were a pain to get to and I realized that I should have bought the liquid version instead of the cream. Here's how it came out:

Monday, October 6, 2014

Good news! I just finished the first set of blueprints for my PEP22 pistol. Click here to go to the download page. They're not perfect, but I think these drawings will get the job done. Let me know if you find any flaws so I can update the files.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

IT'S ALIVE! Sorry for the radio silence. I finally got out to a private range to get some footage.

These clips are within the first ten rounds fired, so I hadn't gotten the hang of reloading yet. I found that it's really easy if you point the gun downwards and hold the round from the rim. Anyway, I put over 100 rounds through the gun with no issues and no significant wear:

Here are the spent casings from the bulk Federal that I put through it. Note the many variations in case deformation. I have to say I'm very proud of this pistol!

I'm planning on doing the hardening and finish during Thanksgiving or Winter Break, and I'll post another video when it's complete. Also is there any interest in blueprints for this? It's a little bit of work to convert the 3D models but I'll gladly share if anyone wants it.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Sorry for the long wait, I was only getting little portions of the project done each evening, so it wasn't worth it to post every night. Anyway, it was time to start shaping the front of the barrel. For my very crude setup, I put some Gorilla tape on my vise jaws and then clamped the barrel in between. I used a steel rule to line up the small edge and rear of the barrel with the top surface of the jaws:

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Yesterday I got to work on the sear slot again. I used cutoff wheels on the Dremel again to get most of the material out. Unfortunately the cutoff wheels don't fit in the slot the short way, so I ended up using them to grind away the entire rectangle.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Yesterday I got started on the slots in the receiver. The receiver needs a slot for the frame hooks, rear tower, sear, ejection port, and charging handle. I started with the hole for the front hooks. Originally my design called for a thin slot for each hook, but I realized that none of my files would be able to fit in the 2mm-wide slots. I could use just a Dremel, but I wanted a better finish so I just resolved to cut out a square.